Dark Minds of the Darkest Age

We think and speak about the dark ages with a strong belief that we are living in the most enlightened and civilized age of human existence. In fact, we are living in the darkest period of human history with the most closed minds ever possible.

To understand this reality we would have to zoom out of the minor details such as windows or windows-less planes hitting the WTC; the impossibility of a passenger plane making neat holes in the third and fourth ring of concrete reinforced walls at Pentagon; the US torture, butchery and other crimes in Iraq, and the ways in which elections were rigged in the US and Ukraine.

These are side issues related to acts committed by poisoned minds in the darkest age of all times. We actually need to unlearn the grand misconception that the unprecedented technological and scientific advancements are signs of our intellectual enlightenment. What we need to learn is that the advancement is exactly a proof of our living with dark minds.

The reason is simple. If we cannot reach the Truth with all the available means of communication, research and education, we are far worse than those living through the dark ages and failing to reach the reality without these facilities.

We can easily draw parallels between present and any dark age of the past. However, the easiest and more comprehensible parallels are possible with the latest dark age that was hardly 14 to15 hundred years ago.

For assessing the dark minds of our age, all one needs is to pick up any article, news-report or documentary produced by the “mainstream” sources about Islam in the US and compare it with beliefs, views, perception and particularly the reaction to the message of truth in the dark ages before us.

In 21st century, Sam Harris tells the world through the pages of Washington Times (Dec 02, 2004) that:

“It is time we admitted that we are not at war with "terrorism." We are at war with Islam. This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran. The only reason Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to us is because the fundamentals of Islam are a threat to us. Every American should read the Koran and discover the relentlessness with which non-Muslims are vilified in its pages. The idea that Islam is a ‘peaceful religion hijacked by extremists’ is a dangerous fantasy -” and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge.”

This is exactly what the world has been hearing since 7th century -” 611 to be exact. The intellectuals, religious and tribal leaders, and even common man said the same thing: We are not against Mohammed (PBUH) and his friends; we are against what he preaches and calls it the word of God. Compare this we the words of Sam Harris in 21st century: “we are absolutely at war with the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran.”

In the 7th century, Arab society had many superstitious and groundless beliefs. These early Arabs believed in legends inherited from past generations. They supposed that mountains supported the sky above. They believed that the world was flat; burying daughters alive is an honorable deed and living life in licentious ways is ultimate goal of existence.

Mohammed (PBUH) was just one person challenging the status quo of a people, who would fight for forty years on the slight provocation that a camel belonging to the guest of one tribe had strayed into the grazing land belonging to other tribe and both sides had fought till they lost 70,000 lives in all; threatening the extinction of both the tribes to such furious Arabs. These people feel threatened with the message of just one person.

Today we see the same. Sam Harris says: “The only reason Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to us is because the fundamentals of Islam are a threat to us.” Remember, that the Qur’an was not fully revealed at this time. Nor were there any companions with Mohammed (PBUH). In today’s world Sam Harris’s fear is justified. He fears not the so-called 1.2 billion Muslims. He is afraid of the Qur’an.

Sam Harris writes: “This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran.” Harris is just a spokesperson of a poisoned and darkened mindset. This is what the New York Times told us exactly one year ago in its lead editorial of November 14, 2003. [1] This is what the Newsweek has been doing with publishing Qur’an-bashing articles such as "Challenging the Qur’an" (Newsweek, July 28, 2003).

People with dark minds were feeling the same way 1400 years ago. They reacted the same way. Same Harris reflected thinking of the dark minds, ruling the “mainstream media.” In his words: “The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific doctrines about martyrdom and jihad that directly inspire Muslim terrorism.”

Remember that dark minds feared Islam when the Qur’an was even not fully revealed, let alone the specific verses about Jihad. Those who demonise Muslims for their belief in the Qur’an and thus in Jihad which is part of the Qur’an must read history. History is before any mind, which is open to reasoning and understanding.

Read how dark minds tortured the early converts to Islam to death without anyone knowing the concept of Jihad. Sumayya, an innocent women, was cruelly torn into pieces with spears, not because she was wagging Jihad against the dark-minded people, but only because dark minded people felt her faith as a threat to the status quo they were trying to maintain.

An example was made of Yassir whose legs were tied to two camels and the beast were driven in opposite directions, well before the revelation of the Qur’an. He was not a "Jihadist."

Khabbab bin Arth was made lie down on the bed of burning coal with the brutal legs of their merciless tyrant on his breast so that he may not move and this made even the fat beneath his skin melt.

Khabban bin Adi was put to death in a cruel manner by mutilation and cutting off his flesh piece-meal." In the midst of his tortures, being asked weather he did not wish Mohammad in his place while he was in his house with his family, the sufferer cried out that he was gladly prepared to sacrifice himself his family and children and why was it that these sons and daughters of Islam not only surrendered to their prophet their allegiance but also made a gift of their hearts and souls to their master?

Against the dark mind of a dark age, these men and women were not of low station, or inferior mental caliber, or born Muslims without any commitment and devotion. Around Mohammed (PBUH) in quite early days, gathered what was best and noblest in Mecca, its flower and cream, men of position, rank, wealth and culture, and from his own kith and kin, those who knew all about his life. All the first four Caliphs, with their towering personalities, were converts of this period.

Dark minds of 21st century call their compatriots: “All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the Earth.” That is exactly what the dark minds of the 7th century felt: a destabilization of the order they had established.

Mental horizon of the dark minds then was narrow, because the struggle for existence in their inhospitable environment was so severe that their energies were exhausted in satisfying the practical and material needs of daily life, and they had little time or inclination for religious or philosophic speculation.

Today the struggle for existence has become economically so tough that no one has time to think over philosophical speculation. Both parents/partners have to work and youth have to start jobs during the summer breaks. In earlier times, religion was a vague polytheism and their philosophy was summed up in a number of pithy sayings. Same is true today and that’s why words of Sam Harris, Friedman, Pipes and others are taken seriously.

The result is that an amazing majority of Bush supporters, 72 percent, still believes that Iraq possessed prohibited weapons or had a major weapons of mass destruction program. A majority of Bush supporters also believe experts agree that Iraq possessed banned weapons just before the war, and that U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer concluded that Iraq held prohibited arms or ran major programs. In fact, Duelfer and the others who have probed the matter found neither weapons of mass destruction nor major programs for producing them. [2]

These are all signs of the dark minds of the darkest period of human history. On al Qaeda’s ties to Iraq, similarly, 75 percent of Bush supporters believed that Iraq either gave al Qaeda "substantial support" or direct involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [3] It would be naÃ¯ve to assume that Sam Harris and others would tell them that the Qur’an is the problem and they would not approve dispatch of troops to win “a war on Islam.”

Due to propaganda by dark minds, the war on Islam has become a primary determinant of policies in the US. The Abu Jahl of 21st century, Bush, is ranting about Iran developing ICBMs to hit the US, carrying nuclear warheads that he insists Iran is planning to build, and that this justifies an invasion. His poisoned-minded followers ignore that China actually has ICBMs, and nuclear warheads (based on the US W-88 designs, no less) and is building missile subs with which to launch them at the US (Washington Times Dec 02, 2004). [4]

But when does the US plans to attack China? Actually the US and its media relentlessly talk a great talk about all these invasions being about stopping nations that pose a nuclear threat to the US and those are against democracy. Iraq wasn’t such a nuclear threat and despite the dark minds current batch-O-lies, Iran looks pretty much tame and helpless relative to the North American continent.

But China is not the pick. Well, they actually have WMDs and they have ICBMs. Loral Corporation even helped make those missiles more accurate, so there is no question that China’s potential threat to the US is far more demonstrable than those from Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or any of those other nations on the list of war lords that consider Islam a threat to their survival.

From the killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan to a question mark added to the title “Islam misunderstood?”, [5] every moment we witness the dark mind of present age on display. Compare what happened when the US declared “mission accomplished” in Iraq with what the Prophet of Islam taught in an age of barbarism. He humanized the Battlefield with strict instructions not to cheat, not to break trust, not to mutilate, not to kill a child or woman or an old man, not to hew down date palm nor burn it, not to cut a fruit tree, not to molest any person engaged in worship.

Remember the way Saddam was treated after his capture with the way Prophet of Islam treated his bitterest enemies. At the conquest of Mecca, he stood at the zenith of his power. The city which had refused to listen to his mission, which had tortured him and his followers, which had driven him and his people into exile and which had unrelentingly persecuted and boycotted him even when he had taken refuge in a place more than 200 miles away, that city now lay at his feet.

By the laws of Jihad that are presented to us by the American media, he could have justly avenged all the cruelties inflicted on him and his people. But what treatment did he accord to them? Mohammad’s (PBUH) heart flowed with affection and he declared, "This day, there is no reproof against you and you are all free." This is high an enlightened mind liberate people. This is freedom. "This day" he proclaimed, "I trample under my feet all distinctions between man and man, all hatred between man and man."

The few examples mentioned above are sufficient to make one realize that whoever remains oblivious of the truth and reality amid the present abundance of information and sources of research, is really a person with a dark mind.

Since most of us can hardly think of anything other than working for five days a week and having fun or sleeping for two days at the weekend, it is reasonable to conclude that ours is the darkest period of all time in human history. The dark minds are bent upon poisoning our minds and the world is set on its course to meet its ultimate tragedy.

Notes:

[1]. http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2151/
[2]. The Program on International Policy Attitudes, affiliated with the University of Maryland conducted this poll. See “The Gap Between Closed Minds,” Dana Milbank, Washington Post, Sunday, October 24, 2004; Page A04
[3]. Ibid. Dana Milbank, Washington Post.
[4] Bill Gertz, “China tests ballistic missile submarine,” THE WASHINGTON TIMES, December 02, 2004 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041202-115302-2338r.htm
[5]. In response to Sam Harris article, the Washington Times published 5 critical letters on December 05, 2004. However, it added a question mark to the title “Islam misunderstood?” showing that either the paper is in doubt or it wants the readers to remain doubtful despite the five letters that it published against Harris’s point of view.

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